Mark, you can always come to Australia for lessons (tongue firmly in cheek). 

I found this site when I needed some easy English grammar lessons to understand French, so you’re not alone :

https://www.ef-australia.com.au/english-resources/english-grammar/simple-past-tense/

Slight problem.. I have only ever done grammar in French.. apart from a bit of German and learning to turn things back to front... but never in English!

The problem is that, seeing what I see  as "Passé simple" when doing French, brings me over a bit queasy... I am fine reading it but actually writing it seems a bit C1!.. but, agree, it is completely simple in English.. whatever the tense.

No. A faux ami in that sense although French passé simple and English simple past are grammatically very similar. 

Precisely. I did do it at school and reading the complete Harry Potter series in French translation has helped me enormously. That is written very much in passé simple as the literary tense.. I think my point is that it is a faux ami and a source of possible confusion to use "Simple past" in this explanation... we are also starting to look at it in my Alliance Française class which means it is up there in my thoughts.

Interesting.. reading JK in English, I had not realised how progressively she uses the language and how conducive it is to developing good language skills.

.. also struggling with Les Mis.. and that is definitely in strange literary constructs!